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This was sent to me today 1/8/04 by a friend in Ireland: UFOs spotted over North Dublin By ((name #1 deleted)) and ((name #2 deleted)) FINGAL is becoming a ‘hot spot’ for UFO experts and fans with reports of almost 100 incidents of unexplained events last year.

Many of them centre around Dublin Airport, with one report exclusively described to the Fingal Independent by the UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland (UPRI), an organisation that monitors the skies of Ireland in search of strange and unexplained ‘aerial phenomena’.

Late last year, the organisation received a report from the co-pilot of an airbus who said he had seen an unidentified ‘red disc’ flying in Irish skies after the co-pilot’s flight had taken off from Dublin Airport.

With what the crew said was ‘phenomenal speed that no aircraft could perform,’ the disc shot vertically upwards and disappeared from sight at 7,000ft Twenty seven minutes later, the crew say they overheard a KLM pilot radioing air traffic control at Dublin Airport with a similar report.

The Irish Aviation Authority checked flight logs for the reported date at both Dublin and Shannon airports but found nothing unusual while a spokesperson from the Pilot’s Association said that none of its members has ever expressed concern over unidentified flying objects in the skies around Dublin Airport.

There have been a number of other incidents, equally as mysterious.

One former local aviation writer contacted by the Fingal Independent stated that he did not believe in the whole UFO thing or rarely heard reports of any strange incidents but was the victim of one such experience more than 20 years ago.

Liam Byrne was living in River Valley Heights in Swords and, being a keen ‘plane spotter’ was following one 747 across the sky when a strange, bright star appeared within five miles of the aircraft.

‘It was a beautiful day and there was not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, I saw this bright star and I watched it for a couple of minutes. Then it darted right overhead and within half a minute shot southwards towards the Wicklow Hills. I would say it travelled about 30/40 miles in less than two seconds.’ ‘I knew people working in the tower at Dublin Airport and I rang them but they didn’t have any record of what it was. I have never been able to figure it out to this day.’ Mystery still surrounds an incident last September when a garda helicopter was called out to investigate an unidentified flying object over Dublin Airport which resembled a paraglider.

When asked if that was possible the Irish Paragliding Association stated that ‘no one in their right mind would paraglide around the airport.’